What if I told you that Macalester’s entire student population would perish within six days? That is the estimated death rate for displaced Sudanese, as six to ten thousand die each month, often from sickness as simple as diarrhea. Sudan’s situation has been making headlines for over a year, and yet very little has been done. Since February of 2003, over one million Sudanese have been driven out of their homes and tens of thousands have been murdered. Civilians are still being displaced, women are still being raped, and going home is a death sentence.

Historically, Arabs in Sudan tend to practice nomadic pastoralism, and black Africans (such as the Fur or Masalit) tend to subsist through sedentary agriculture. These differing subsistence practices put the two populations in conflict for land and water, only a spark needed to create violence, and that spark came when the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attacked the government installations in order to draw attention to their need for economic and political rights. The Sudanese government responded by setting Arab militias, called Janjaweed, loose on innocent black Africans.

The Arab dominated government proceeded to bomb African villages while giving the Janjaweed free rein to burn, loot, and destroy any non-Arab settlements. The attacks were not focused on the rebels, instead encompassing any and all black Africans. The Janjaweed militia even attempted to chase Africans fleeing into Chad. A ceasefire signed in April of 2004 has done nothing to stop the brutal attacks. The ruthless Janjaweed campaign continues even with the rebel groups effectively decimated.

Despite ample amounts of time to meaningfully intervene in Darfur, few international organizations have done anything of substance. The US House of Representatives and Senate did pass a resolution declaring the Darfur crisis genocide in July 2004, but all that President Bush has done is lead an international effort to enforce the very type of sanctions that he found to be utterly ineffective in the case of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The lack of decisive action is not limited to the United States. The United Nations is rendered nearly useless by its endless diplomacy. Its many sanctions, resolutions, meetings are only empty rhetoric. The crisis in Sudan has not been labeled genocide by the United Nations, yet it fits their definition. This persecution is committed with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group… [by] killing members of the group… [and] deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Yet everyone is too busy tip-toeing around terminology to begin to do anything meaningful. Regardless of the label affixed to the situation, it requires immediate that is invariably slowed by the reluctance of Russia and China to enforce sanctions.

The Sudanese government is routinely insisting that the conditions are improving, and allows some access to humanitarian aid workers. That was apparently enough for the UN to weaken oil sanctions. Now there are more resolutions threatening to consider action, which is worse than doing nothing at all. What use is history if impotent bureaucracies allow it to be perpetually repeated? Wasn’t it just ten years ago that international organizations stood by twiddling their thumbs as genocide occurred in Rwanda?

It is in the midst of great atrocities that the UN should be able to make the greatest difference. It is little more than a figurehead organization unless it employs real powers to affect real change. This organization cannot be content to make a difference only in the aftermath of government-sponsored persecution and then promise to do better next time. The responsibility given to the UN is much more significant than mere politics; individual human lives have been needlessly lost, are still being lost, and will continue to be lost in the future because of genocidal acts. It is time to stop pretending that diplomacy, watery sanctions, and under-funded humanitarian aid are always enough. The Sudanese government is not protecting the black Africans. They will not wake up tomorrow morning and decide to protect these people.

It is long past time to take meaningful action by getting peacekeeping troops in Sudan and giving the refugees a home to go back to. It seems that the political powers of the world cannot claim to be concerned with basic human rights unless they finally begin to make a difference in the course of history. This difference must begin with Sudan. The United Nations must provide numerous and conspicuous peace-keeping forces and garner monetary support from Security Council nations for its humanitarian efforts. Only then will there be any hope of changing history.